Send in the clones

Page Tools

Why viewers are turning off copycat television programs. David Dale
reports.

Not long ago, John Stephens, formerly a programmer with Channel
Nine and now head of program strategy and acquisitions for Channel
Seven, had a feeling of deja vu as he was looking through some
proposals for new dramas from the United States. He had found one
called Soccer Mums. "It's about what these women do all day
after they drop off their kids at school in their
four-wheel-drives," he recalls. "I thought, 'Oh yes, I wonder what
could possibly have inspired that'."

Seven is revelling in the success of Desperate
Housewives, which is unique on TV, even if it owes a little to
Melrose Place, Six Feet Under and Sex and the
City. But as Stephens knows, nothing on the box stays unique
for long. Nearly 40 years of deja vu experiences tell him that
Soccer Mums is the first of many Housewives
clones.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, Stephens says.
Copycatting is a time-honoured TV tradition. You just have to be
smarter in the way you do it these days.

"When I was a kid, Bonanza was on top and all through the
'60s there were four or five westerns living happily together in
the top 10 - shows like Maverick, Rawhide, Wagon
Train, Gunsmoke, The Big Valley," Stephens
recalls. "Then in the '70s, you had all the Australian cop shows -
Homicide first, then Division 4, Cop Shop,
Matlock Police. In the '80s you had the glossy soaps,
Dallas and Dynasty, then Knots Landing,
Falcon Crest, The Colbys."

What's changed then is the attention span of viewers. In those
days, networks could get away with generating blatant clones of
hits for eight years or more. Now, they're lucky if a fad lasts
three years.

As Stephens puts it: "We're all scared of overcooking the
goose."

This decade, the gloss has already come off the reality fad,
which began with Big Brother and Survivor and fizzled
last year with The Resort and The Hothouse; and the
home-improvement fad, which peaked in 2002 when Backyard
Blitz, Renovation Rescue and Location Location
attracted audiences of 2 million, but was nailed into its coffin at
the beginning of this year when Nine's Renovate or Detonate
was pulled.

The police procedural fad built slowly but really took off in
2003 when CSI: Miami joined CSI on Nine and Ten was
showing three versions of Law & Order. With the market
now saturated by Cold Case, Without a Trace, CSI:
NY and yet another Law & Order, the fad probably has
only another year or so left in it.

The talent quest fad that began with Popstars and peaked
last year with Australian Idol now seems to be in terminal
condition. StarStruck has been a disappointment for Nine,
failing to work in two timeslots, and The X Factor has been
drawing half a million fewer viewers than Idol on its worst
day.

As David Castran, director of the research firm Audience
Development Australia, puts it: "Viewers have become more
discerning and more impatient, and they have a lot more choices
outside of television. If you're a programmer, you have to jump on
the bus early, because it's going to be a very short ride.

"Simple copycatting doesn't work any more. You can't just say,
'Look, they've got a hit show. We need one like that'. You have to
identify the underlying attitudinal need met by the original show
and create something different that satisfies the same demand."

David Mott, program director with Channel Ten, knows exactly
what Castran means. Asked if he would consider doing a ballroom
dancing show, since Seven and the ABC are doing so well with that
genre, Mott says: "I'm not sure that format is right for our
demographic. Dancing with the Stars skews very old - over
55, in fact. But maybe there's something we can take from it for
our audience [viewers under 40]. Obviously, there's curiosity about
celebrities doing different things. Celebrity shows are big in
England at the moment. I could see some future for the
fish-out-of-water idea."

But if Ten jumps on that bandwagon (as Nine did with
Celebrity Overhaul), it will need a very different vehicle.
"Our audience is quick to smell a rat," Mott says. "They can spot a
me-too show right away, and they've got better things to do with
their time."

So why did Ten risk overcooking the goose with The X
Factor, which looks alarmingly like Australian Idol? "We
were forced into that, to be honest," Mott says. "The format was on
the market and someone in Australia was going to buy The X
Factor. We decided we had to control it, or someone else would
have put it up against Idol."

Mott thinks Australian Idol has established an enduring
identity, but the wave of talent quests has broken. "I don't think
there's anywhere else to go with that genre," he says.

Mott says a certain amount of copycatting is inevitable in
television because programming is a percentage game. "For every
three or four shows you put on, only one will stick - and you can't
tell in advance which one that will be." When one network gets a
breakout hit, that gives the other networks information that could
increase their own odds of success - if they can work fast enough
and if they can make their clone different enough to avoid viewer
fatigue.

All the programmers agree that the next big fad will be quirky
thrillers. "I'm encouraged that the US studios are now promising
more scripted dramas, because

it had just become ridiculous with all the reality shows," Mott
says.

Ten and Nine envy the luck of Seven, which gained the two
biggest US hits of the moment through an ancient deal with Buena
Vista that had delivered nothing of interest since the sitcom
Home Improvement in the early '90s.

The Australian networks say they don't have the budgets to
attempt local clones of Desperate Housewives and Lost
(the latter costs up to $5 million an episode). They just hope that
their US partners can generate imitations fast enough to reach
Australia before the market is saturated.

But Castran says there is much to be learned about "underlying
needs" from the success of the new US dramas. "When we talk to
viewers, they say they are disappointed with Australian dramas
because they can tell halfway through what the end is going to be,
while these American shows are full of twists and surprises, and
humour.

"To hold an audience, a show needs moments that make you sit
forward in your seat, moments that engage you. That doesn't have to
just be an opportunity to send a text-message and throw out a
contestant. They can be classic dramatic moments.

"If the makers of Australian dramas took that on board, it
wouldn't be copycatting. It would be using the inspiration of the
new American dramas to recognise the way television can keep the
audience involved."